Wednesday, March 3, 2010

What's your favorite day of the week?

So yesterday was a super eventful day and every Tuesday from now until the end of May will follow in its footsteps.

I started an outside class at a local junior high school today. Just me and 28 teenagers ages 14-to-15 years old. It was probably the best class I've ever taught.

The class is held in a big room in the library and the material I have is just sufficient enough to take up the class as long as I add in a couple of activities. And the material isn't totally lame so we can actually strike up a couple of thoughtful conversations.

I started off the class getting the kids to tell me about themselves and then I told them about myself and Texas. Next class, if they can remember three things about me or my beloved home state then they get extra participation points.

I need to get organized for this class though because it's definitely going to be more work than the average Gloria class, though not by a whole lot.

I got a lot of good laughs from them and they surprised me by having awesome English and a higher-level vocabulary than I expected for their age.

Even the kids who have only been learning English for four years or so were doing really well. And no one spoke Chinese during class!

It's nice to feel like a real teacher and it will be a good test of my abilities. My job is essentially to encourage them to talk more and give them the occasional writing prompt. I decided to give them a small writing assignment for homework the first day just so I can get a better assessment of their abilities.

With such a large class, I don't have time to do any individual work which is usually how I test them and find out where they are. It's all about groups and pairs with the class.

The addition of this class makes my Tuesdays pretty exciting though.

The Gloria classes I have are already two of my smartest classes (including my babies who are growing up so fast!). So now I just spend the day with a bunch of super intelligent kids only to finish out the day struggling with my Chinese.

Actually, Linda told me last night that my Chinese is noticeably better just since the new year holiday.